This past weekend went pretty well. Saturday was cold, wet and dreary but it actually stopped drizzling while we were playing and as for the dreary, we managed to liven things up. On Sunday Sundridge was definitely not sunny. Yesterday the weather was a repeat of Saturday. As Minister Clement called it, “Liquid Sunshine” was the order for the day apparently. We arrived on site around 8:15 AM and it was straight to work to get the tent up. After the tent was up they called a hold to the set-up of the pans. They wanted to wait and see if the weather improved any. I can’t say that it was out right raining. There was just this fine mist that couldn’t make-up it’s mind whether it wanted to rain or not. So it ended up going back and forth between mist and drizzle. Eventually they decided to set-up the pans. Which under the wet conditions meant laying out a tarp under a small tent moving the boxes with the pans out of the truck and onto the tarp and then getting the pans out of the boxes and setting them up on their stands. It works out OK it just takes a little bit longer.

It was wet and cold during the performance. Aside from the fact that it makes it a little hard to hold on to your mallets when your fingers are numb I didn’t feel the cold all that much, granted I had on a double layer of shirts and a jacket. It wasn’t that bad and I actually enjoyed myself. I think due to the weather it wasn’t a huge turn out but it was still a respectable amount of people and everyone who was there really seemed to enjoy themselves. There was plenty of toe tapping and smiling. All in all even though the weather tried to disappoint it turned out to be a pretty good couple of performances.

Aghhh……it’s 6:30 on a Sunday morning and at this moment I wish I was still in bed! OK, so I have risen but I’m not sure about the shine part yet. Even though this weekend’s are small group performances it still is proving to be a tough one. Last night we did a private party and did sets from 5—10 PM which means we didn’t get back till about 12 PM and then it was out to the music building to switch instruments because there are some different people going today. Today it’s COLD! The weatherman calls for cold and rainy so we’ll see what goes down or should I say comes down (I know stupid joke, but give me a break it’s 6 in the morning).

I have been up for a while getting my uniform and stuff together. I guess I better start thinking about breakfast or it really will be a long morning. My rides suppose to pick me up a little before 7:30 because we have to be on the road by then. So I better get moving.

So it’s the day after the Huntsville Town Docks performance. In the month of August the town of Huntsville has an Art in the Park series, every Wednesday night they have a free public performance from different groups down at the the town docks. It was a perfect evening for the performance not to hot, not to cold, a light breeze was keeping us all comfortable. The group was about 30 people which is a little under half of the orchestra. So it was a decent size. But what was really a decent size was the crowd. Not only was there plenty of people for the performance lots of them actually showed up early and had their lawn chairs and blankets in tow. Even though we played with our backs to the water we had a few people pull up in their boats and enjoy the performance from there. As a matter of fact one of the boats was a pontoon boat from Rogers Cove (a local retirement residence) it was filled with a bunch of their residents who wanted to enjoy the show. And when I say we had our backs to the water I don’t mean the water was 20 feet behind us. The back row of the group was literally standing on the wood of the dock! Huntsville has become quite the tourist town especially in the summer and there were a lot of them there last night, but not only were there tourist there was a lot of former members and students who came to support us…that’s right I’m talking about you, Jackie, Tim & Kate …it was great to see everybody. We got a hearty ovation at the end and demands for an encore (my suspicion is that one of our fans Sharon started that). We never want to disappoint our audience so we played Toco Band as the encore.

Oh, did I mention that for the last several years we have played at the Baysville Boat Show, but this year it didn’t work out and they decided to try something different. Can’t blame them sometimes a change is really nice. Anyway the boat show was this past Sunday and at rehearsal on Monday night they read an email that the Orchestra had received. I can’t remember exactly what it said but it was sent on Sunday night and it went something like this…”I was wondering if we could book you back to Baysville for next year. We had numerous complaints today that you weren’t there. You have a huge following…and I hope you will take us back.” So if all things work out, it looks like we might be back at Baysville next year. Of course we never know what is coming this far in advance but I hope we can do it.

Well tonight we have another performance. This one is just down the street at the Girl Guide camp. They always have TONS of energy there. Then on Sunday we have a performance for a wedding at one of the local resorts (Grandview). I’ll let you know how it goes.

I just got home from rehearsal. HOT, HOT, HOT! I now can sympathize with the poor lobster that gets thrown in the pot of boiling water. Summer has finally hit here in Muskoka and for the last couple of days it has been in the 30′s (for those of you who speak Fahrenheit that means in the 80′s). Only this evening the humidity hit the roof!!! I am sure you can imagine 60 people in a room, playing their instruments and if you have seen us play you know that we don’t exactly sit still when we play. The temperature gauge in the music building registered 31 degrees. WE WERE MELTING…actually we can’t really complain overall it hasn’t been too hot at rehearsals, although it does make it harder to focus when it is.

We have had some kids from Toronto here for their summer vacation and one from New York and guess what?!?!? They played with the orchestra for the first time tonight. They played What A Friend, Summertime, Mission Possible, Cry of My Heart, and 3 Little Birds. As a matter of fact they got a standing ovation from the rest of us. It just so happens we were already standing, but if we hadn’t been we would have stood. They did AWESOME! Too bad it is almost time for them to go back to school.

We also played to the end of the new song. Now it’s time for working it up to speed. I think we are playing it around 96 (beats per minute) in rehearsal. I haven’t heard what speed we are headed for, but just my luck it will be 116 or something. I guess that means it’s time for me to go practice that run a few more times. I am not sure my arms can go that fast, but I guess we’ll see.

We performed right in our own backyard this last Saturday. It actually made it kind of nice. The travel time was real short for one thing, which meant I could sleep in a little longer. WAHOO!!!!! It’s always a plus when you don’t have to get up super early and spend five hours in a car. The weather man had called for rain in the late afternoon and thunderstorms at night, lucky for us the performance ended at 3PM. Actually surprise, surprise the weather man was wrong. It didn’t rain till the next day.

What I learned at Sprucedale…well the concert was on August 8. Two band members had birthdays that day, another one had one the day before, and another one had one the day after. We played Happy Birthday several times because people requested for other people’s birthday. Sprucedale is not that big and it just happened to be like 8 peoples birthdays!!! So what I learned is there are a lot of birthdays in August.

Anyway back to the performance. Because the performance was not the entire orchestra it was not thought of as a full performance, but rather a small group. But considering that only a handful of people didn’t perform it sure felt like a full performance. We used the 40×40 tent and filled it as full as we could. Actually quite a few of the orchestra members that didn’t perform came to watch the performance. A few of them started to line dance and next thing you know they were teaching audience members who wanted to join in. In the last set there was some strange guy with a hunchback, a cane, a floppy hat & glasses with the nose and mustache (you know the one). Well this person sure could dance for having to walk with a cane! As a matter of fact, he sure was wiggling all over the place. Coming right up to the front line and staring at them. Next thing you know he was waving a bright red handkerchief in the air and then waving it in the faces of the players. Quite a strange fellow, but suspiciously he seemed to know the music really well. If you watched him dance you could see that he knew when the breaks in the songs were coming. He had quite a few of us laughing. Turns out he was not a he but rather a she, one of our past players trying to pull a fast one on us. Some people recognized her with the disguise on, but some didn’t and were not quite convinced who it was. Anyway I won’t reveal her name but she knows who she is and if she is reading this let me say GOOD JOB! I will try and ask around and see if anyone got a photo so I can post it for you.

Well I got to run, I really should go practice. Got to keep up.

Ok…so last night at rehearsal the “List” was posted. The question always seems to be are you on the “list”? You see they have a complicated formula for coming up with it and every time it’s different. They multiply the weight of the pans by the air temperature, add the number of songs and then subtract the amount of pan covers. That is the very secret formula to figuring out who goes. Nah…I’m just kidding. They do have a lot to consider, such as the number of instruments that will fit in the space, the overall balance of sound, who is available to go and who hasn’t been in a while, etc.

For all of those of you who don’t know what the “list” is, it’s really not that mysterious. Every time we have a small group they post a list of who is going. Guess what I’m on it. No big surprise, the odds of not being on the list for this Sprucedale performance are really small, since there are actually more people on it than those who are not. Anyway the List is up, the buzz is around, and guess what? It’s already time for another performance.

You asked for them so here they are.

OK I’m finally recovered from this weekend, I think. Kearney was just as good as we thought it would be. Although when we were setting up you would have thought we were in the middle of a tropical storm. The wind was terrible!!! We had to tie down the pans so they wouldn’t blow over, eventually it died down but it took a while. It ended up being a real nice night, we got home around 12 AM and it was straight out to the music building to unpack. At least it was a holiday on Monday so we could all sleep in, if we wanted. Well if you saw us this weekend leave a comment and tell me what you thought.

Well last night we had a blast in Dwight. It was overcast in the afternoon but it never actually got around to raining on us. YEAH! We had quite a crowd. They seemed to be livelier than the past couple of years and this year the barge that set of the fireworks was a lot closer to the shore which made the fireworks more impressive and noisier, but hey we’re use to noise by now, right?! We ended up getting home just after 12 last night, which actually isn’t to bad. Although it sure is a relief that we don’t have to leave till 1:30 this afternoon. It’s already 9:30, I better get a move on it. I still have to eat breakfast, iron my uniform, pack a lunch and a whole bunch of other things.